The Statement of Work (SOW) must be agreed to by all stakeholders to complete a project. The SOW must contain sufficient detail so all stakeholders understand the required scope of work, the duration of work, and identification of the specific deliverables.

Provides information that will be performed in the project, including business objectives and project description, such as completion criteria, risk assessment, constraints, impact analysis, project success measures, critical success factors, project approach, roles and participants.

The Statement of Work contains the following topics:

  Introduction
        Stakeholders and Contacts
  Business Objectives
        Business Need or Opportunity
        Business (Product) Description and Solutions
        Deliverables
        Software Verification and Validation

  Project Description
        Completion Criteria
        Risk Assessment
        Constraints
        Dependency linkages
        Impact
        Measures of Project Success
        Roles and Key project Participants

  Project Estimates
        Estimated Schedule
        Resource Requirements
            Team and Support Resources
        Estimated Costs

  Project Controls
        Risk / Contingency Management
        Issue Management
        Change Management

Scroll down to the IT Statement of Work example below.